Australia experienced its hottest year on record in 2013, the Bureau of Meteorology said Friday, enduring the longest heatwave ever recorded Down Under as well as destructive bushfires. “2013 was Australia’s warmest year since records began in 1910,”…

This post was republished using Repost. Please read it on Informed Comment directly: http://www.juancole.com/2014/01/australia-hottest-instability.html

Here in Perth, we’ve actually had a pretty mild summer so far: If I recall correctly there were only two stretches of a handful of days each where the mercury approached 40C. The thing is, we also had a very mild winter, and not much rain at all. So, while it doesn’t *feel* like it’s been the hottest year on record, this is of course the kind of completely irrelevant snippet which is cherrypicked by AGW denialists in the same way as the old “1998 was the hottest year therefore the globe hasn’t been cooling in 16 years” canard.

Early this week, I was flabbergasted to read an editorial in The Australian (a conservative broadsheet) that trotted out more than a few denialist non-facts, including the above. Bullet point after bullet point; I’d heard Lord Monckton regurgitate each one in 2011 when he was last here at the behest of mining luminaries and pro-corporate think tanks to try and save us all from falling into a terrible, Luddite plot to sabotage modern industry and shackle us with One World Government, probably commie too. I’m not a scientist, but I’ve read enough of ‘both sides’ of the ‘debate’ to conclude that denialists don’t have a leg to stand on, and haven’t had for years; yet denialism persists?! It’s nuts.

Soon after his election, Tony Abbott de-funded the Australian Climate Commission, an independent advisory body. Less than a week of public hue and cry later, it was revived thanks to public donations to a newly formed not-for-profit group.

In the same week, Abbott formed the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council; appointing Maurice Newman as its chair. Mr Newman rang in the New Year with a little screed in The Australian titled “Crowds go cold on climate cost”, the only saving grace of which is the fact it’s behind a paywall. Here’s Professor of atmospheric science David Karoly’s take-out from it:link to theage.com.au

”
His piece is a mix of common climate change myths, misinformation and ideology. While Mr Newman is welcome to his opinions, his writing reveals his sad misunderstanding of the facts about climate change.

As Upton Sinclair wrote, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!”
”

One can but hope that more rational heads in our current government pull Newman’s rather less so one into line, but I’m not holding my breath. The icing on the cake? Lord Monckton is returning to our shores in February.